


Pal, Buddy, Amigo

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Tim's Dead, also is this a timsteph fic who am i, anyway there are emotions in this fic, except........he's not, two in a row wow me!, you know how comics are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: Steph is sad about Tim's death, and she wants a friend to hang out with.





	

Steph’s heart hurts. 

 

Her heart hurts and she feels numb and her head feels like ice and she’s berating herself for falling for him  _ again.  _

  
  


Last time--last time, they had just broken up. They had been young and stupid, and she had held no hard feelings for him. 

 

But then--but then, when she woke up, when she got here, after the blank nothing when she--when she didn’t exist and all her hard work was erased--he hadn’t remembered any of it. 

  
  
  


And he was so cute, so earnest, and they were older, and she was willing to try again. 

  
  
  


And now Tim Drake is dead, and Steph had stupidly fallen in love with him again. 

  
  
  
  
  


(She never learns, does she?)

  
  
  


She wishes she had someone to talk to, but. She’s afraid of spending too much time with Cass, she’s afraid of Cass finding out that Steph remembers the universe rebooting twice. What if Cass thinks she’s crazy? As Cass’s certified best friend (well, at least once upon a time), Steph doesn’t really think Cass would--turn her in, or anything, but. Steph’s afraid, afraid, afraid, of rejection.

 

She can’t go to Kara, because Kara doesn’t know her. (And this Kara might be different, like how Cass is different and Steph is supposed to be different and it’s all--so confusing.)

  
  


She can’t go to Cassie, because Cassie doesn’t know her. 

  
  


She can’t go to her mom, or Klarion, or--or Tim, because. She can’t. 

  
  


Only one person sticks out in her mind, and she knows he’d laugh at her if she went for comfort for Tim’s death. And she’s not afraid of Damian Wayne laughing at her, it’d probably be familiar, but. 

 

_ He doesn’t know her.  _

  
  


And for some reason, that makes her sadder then the lack of her best friends. 

 

She wonders if the little twerp has any friends here, in this world. She wonders if Colin’s still around, if he still has Dick. 

 

(she’s certain Dick’s still there for him. No universe can change that much.)

 

She hopes he has friends. She hopes he has people that love him. She hopes, hopes, hopes. 

  
  
  


_ There’s room in our line of work for hope, too,  _ she had told him. She wonders if he remembers. 

  
  


She wonders if her influence had traveled across the reboots. Probably not. 

  
  
  


Steph buries her head in her hands and tries not to cry. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Damian watches her window. She’s curled on the floor, wearing a hoodie that may have belonged to Drake, maybe crying, he can’t tell. 

  
  


He scoffs. She’s being weak, and he wants her to stop. Since when had she been so torn up over  _ Drake?  _ Sure, they had used to date, before, but it is odd to see her….in love with him. 

  
  
  


Damian doesn’t like it. 

 

Of course, for her this is her only timeline. For her, Spoiler and Tim Drake have always been in love. She’s never moved on, or grown wiser. 

  
  
  


Damian scowls and pulls on his hood. He wants to talk to her. He wants to swing in through her window and make her stop crying and get up. 

  
  


But she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know him. She can’t know that she was the Batgirl to his Robin, that he avoids Gordon (who isn’t really Gordon, not anymore), because Gordon can’t be Batgirl. Brown is Batgirl, and that’s the only Batgirl he’ll accept. 

  
  


  
But of course, she hasn’t died. She hasn’t died and remembered the way it used to be. She’s not aware of the two universal….reboots. She doesn’t know. 

  
  


She doesn’t know, and Damian does, and it’s not fair. 

  
  


Colin doesn’t exist anymore. Stephanie doesn’t remember him, doesn’t remember their--their partnership. 

  
  
  


Damian is alone. 

  
  
  
  
  


He scoffs and flips down from the tree he’s perched on, landing on his feet. He looks up one last time, at the window, and he ignores the tugging in his chest, the phantom pains in his stomach, and he walks away. 

  
  
  
  


“What were you doing?” Logan asks when Damian gets back on his plane. He can tell the other Titans are burning with curiosity. 

 

“Visiting someone,” he says, and he sits in the pilot’s seat and lifts off. 

 

“You said you didn’t have any friends,” West (the other West, the small one, the second one, this universe is so  _ weird)  _ says. 

 

_ “ _ That was not a lie,” Damian says, flying the plane towards their destination. “I don’t have any friends.” 

  
  


An awkward silence falls over the group. Roth clears her throat, and Damian speaks before she can. 

 

_ “ _ We are going to get food before we leave properly,” he says. “Put on your civilian clothes.”

 

“What food are we getting?” Koriand’r asks. Damian swallows the lump in his throat. 

  
  
  


“Waffles,” he says, and he is definitely  _ not  _ blinking back tears. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! comments/kudos welcome!


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